June already

Well, we're mostly over our respiratory infections. I just have a slight cough now. We've been doing a lot of paperwork. David helped his Dad on the day he had knee surgery. He's doing better with his recovery from open-heart surgery.

Our weather started cooling down last week, and we had a freak storm with high winds and lightning which scared the dogs, especially big old Sparky. He had to hang out in the laundry room for a while. We weren't hit by the full force of the storm. Some locations were warned to expect hail the size of a quarter. We heard about a security system fried by a power outage and surge. Our region seems to be prone to these fast-moving, intense storms from the East in the summer.

We had a relaxed, casual Branch party last week, and I took lemon cookies from cake mix. Very quick and easy. Popular. Remind me to
post the recipe. It was an adult party. I was interested in who chose to go swimming. A mother and daughter who are kind of sporadic in their church attendance, and an older woman who walks with a walker. Nice to see her in the water.

Last night was the Pinewood Derby for the Cub Scouts. A lot of adults in the community put a lot of work into this little event. The kids were excited. A brother and sister team just a little older than the Cubbies judged who crossed the finish line first. A friend suggested that next year, I need to prepare a car of my own for this race. it would probably be fun.

On my kitchen and garden blog, I've posted a report on apricots and our first tomato from the garden, and also a recipe for yummy, down-home Okie Squash and Tomatoes.

On the Culture and Political front, I've put up posts on American Values (Prager University), Andrew Breitbart and Hollywood, Newsweek, Playboy, the General Motors bankruptcy and the 20th anniversary today of the Tiananmen Square Massacre. Take a look around if you like.